Good behavior means good expectations

August 04, 2013

A story is told of the great Universalist minister Hosea Ballou who was, one day in the early nineteenth century, riding between towns with a minister from a different tradition, arguing theology as they traveled the circuit of their pulpits. At one point the other rider looked over and said, "Brother Ballou, if I were a Universalist and feared not the fires of hell, I could hit you over the head, steal your horse and saddle, and ride away, and I'd still go to heaven." Ballou looked back at him and replied, "If you were a Universalist, the idea would never occur to you."

Morality is a central concern of every religion. Every religion ought to help its adherents distinguish between good behavior that is to be encouraged and bad behavior that is to be discouraged. Religions that have a holy book or a great leader have a relatively easy time of identifying their moral center, in that it's whatever the book or the leader says it is. There's still the problem of interpretation, something that keeps the priests and the scribes employed for generations, but in principle it's straightforward.

In contrast, Unitarian Universalism has neither a holy book nor a great leader, at least not in any singular sense. Rather, any book can be holy, if holiness can be found within its pages. And any person can be someone who inspires, supports, guides, comforts and counsels others, given aptitude and/or training. So, on the basis of a generalized understanding of how most other religions receive moral authority, it's not uncommon for some people to express doubts about the moral center of Unitarian Universalism when it's not given to us by some specially designated source.

Well, the Unitarian Universalist versions of priests and scribes have been hard at work on this for a long time, usually constructing elaborate systems involving evolutionary biology and categorical imperatives and other complex psycho-social theories, all of which are really just attempts to identify some other outside source of moral authority. But my barely one-year-old daughter, who has filled my life with joy while also teaching me many things about what it means to be human, has convinced me that it may well be a whole lot simpler than that.

After all, when she eats her food without dribbling it down her face and over her clothes, when she lets go of my cell 'phone charger wire and stops trying to chew on the little plug on the end, when she lies still on the changing pad and lets me not only put a clean diaper on her but, more importantly, dispose of the old one without any of its contents escaping, then I find myself, quite without thinking about it, praising her for "being good".

In other words, when my baby daughter behaves according to my expectations of her behavior, when she does what I want or would like her to do, that, really, is what it means to me for her to be good. I love her even when she doesn't, of course, but perhaps the bigger lesson is that understanding morality doesn't need highbrow ideas or elaborate psychological or sociological concepts. Perhaps it just needs the recognition that when we are in relationship with one another, then we have certain expectations of one another, and when those expectations are met, then that's good, and when they're not, then that's bad.

And that is the great news of Unitarian Universalism, a religion that is based on the truth that we are most human when we are in right relationship with one another and with the world around us, a religion that calls us to dwell in beloved community in spite of our differences and our disagreements, a religion that recognizes the human need to believe in something as individuals but stresses that what really matters is how those beliefs determine our behavior together, a religion that trusts that revelation is not sealed and that we can always learn better and deeper and more loving ways to be in relationship with one another.

The Rev. Andrew Clive Millard is minister at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Peninsula in Newport News. He can be reached at minister@uufp.org.